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SENSOR MODELLING, DESIGN AND DATA PROCESSING FOR AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION
by Martin David Adams (ESEC, SA)
Martin David Adams obtained his first degree in engineering science from Oxford University in 1988 and, in 1992, was conferred a D Phil by the Robotics Research Group from that university. After moving to Switzerland, he continued his research as a postdoctoral research assistant at the Institute of Robotics of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Between 1994 and 1995, he was a guest professor in Buchs, St Gallen (Switzerland) where he taught control theory. Since September 1996, he has been a research scientist in robotics and control at the European Semiconductor Equipment Centre (ESEC) in Cham, Switzerland. His interests include mobile robot navigation, sensor design and interpretation, and control. He also shares a patent for a light detection and ranging sensor for use in mobile robotics.
This invaluable book presents an unbiased framework for modelling and using sensors to aid mobile robot navigation. It addresses the problem of accurate and reliable sensing in confined environments and makes a detailed analysis of the design and construction of a low cost optical range finder. This is followed by a quantitative model for determining the sources and propagation of noise within the sensor. The physics behind the causes of erroneous data is also used to derive a model for detecting and labelling such data as false. In addition, the author's data-processing algorithms are applied to the problem of environmental feature extraction. This forms the basis of a solution to the problem of mobile robot localisation. The book develops a relationship between the kinematics of a mobile robot during the execution of successive manoeuvres, and the sensed features. Results which update a mobile vehicle's position using features from 2D and 3D scans are presented.
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